Radical Mindfulness Playlist

Before encountering and practicing Buddhist cosmology I lacked cultural resources for making friends with this wild world I was born into and would one day feed in decomposition. Like many in the same predicament, listening to music and attending live shows became a form of ceremony for metabolizing my existential fears and affirming this exuberant world. Below are songs that to this day help me say yes to a life that includes death. That affirmation makes me less defensive, less liable to seek compensatory control, and thus more alive to mutual care and justice.

I’ve broken them into two categories: Bathtub Music and upbeat Bangers 🙂 I’ve provided YouTube links if they were provided by the artist themselves. Please do reach out at jkrowe@uvic.ca if you’d like to suggest additional ones.

For the bath:

Olafur Arnalds – Near Light

Julianna Barwick – The Magic Place

Richard Buckner – Julia Miller

Cold Specks – Lay Me Down

Magnetic Fields – Born on a Train

Louis Armstrong – What a Wonderful World

Mount Eerie – Real Death

Hannah Georgas – Ode to Mom

Ben Harper – I’ll Rise

Mirah/Ginger Takahashi – While we Have the Sun

Nina Simone – Ain’t Got No (I Got Life)

Weakerthans – Virtute the Cat Explains her Departure

bangers:

Bright Eyes – Method Acting

Michael Franti – Sun and Moon

First Hate – Time to Start Giving

Marina – To Be Human

Metric – Help I’m Alive

Northcote – Om Namah Shivaya

N’we Jinan Artists – We Are Medicine

Mike Posner – I’m Not Dead Yet

The Skull Eclipses – Pushing Up the Hills

Sophie – It’s Okay to Cry

Stars – No One is Lost

Wolf Saga – Keep Dancing